CommmunicAsia 2011 - Main Highlights

CommunicAsia 2011 Highlights

CommunicAsia 2011 has definitely proved us wrong in our earlier prediction of a muted affair. Perhaps, it was the vibe of the swanky Marina Bay Sands Convention Center or Nokia's long-awaited return to the annual infocomm trade show that made the difference. In the end, we have to say this has been an interesting CommunicAsia, with the announcement of new mobile products and potential shake-ups in the mobile industry. To summarize the main highlights of CommunicAsia 2011, here's our video summary and a quick round-up of the news that made the headlines in our coverage.

Product Showcase and Hands-on

One of the big surprise just a day before CommunicAsia 2011 kicked off was not the Huawei Mediapad. It's the underlying Google Android 3.2 OS that threw us off track. This new Honeycomb update, which is still shrouded in mystery, is supposedly optimized for 7-inch tablets like the Huawei Mediapad. From the Huawei press conference, we present a quick hands-on of the Chinese company's new tablet.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900, which was announced at BlackBerry World 2011, made an appearance at CommunicAsia 2011. Similar to Huawei, we had an early look at the Bold 9900 when BlackBerry held a separate press conference outside of the Marina Bay Sands Covnention Center. We share some hands-on impressions of the newly minted BlackBerry device with an updated 1.2GHz processor and touch screen capabilities.

CommunicAsia 2011 was definitely no quiet affair with Nokia returning and making a few key announcements at Nokia Connection. The Finnish company's CEO, Stephen Elop, was present to unveil the long-awaited and promised MeeGo device, dubbed as the Nokia N9. We got some hands-on time with the Nokia N9, and learned how its NFC capabilities works in tandem with its latest Bluetooth accessories.

To coincide with CommunicAsia 2011, Sony Ericsson also held a global press conference in Singapore. The company's Xperia family welcomes its latest members, one of which is a fitness-centric Android 2.3 smartphone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia active, and two accessories that showcases the tight integration of the apps ecosystem to its devices.

Technology

Product showcases aren't the only highlight at CommunicAsia 2011. Unlike previous years, NTT Docomo chose to showcase some of its latest mobile services at this year's CommunicAsia. Once again, near field communication takes center stage when NTT Docomo demonstrates mobile payment with the wireless service, with a bout of augmented reality gaming thrown in to keep visitors entertained at their booth.

Will NFC be the next huge thing in the mobile industry? With Nokia demonstrating its NFC-ready products and NTT Docomo's aim to create a global standard for the wireless technology, this is a likely trend mover in the market. We weigh in our thoughts on the convenience of NFC, and its importance in the development of the mobile industry in this brief overview.

CommunicAsia 2011 gave us a chance to examine how LTE will make a difference in mobile connection speeds when it goes into full deployment. The question is, will LTE benefit the consumer anytime soon, or will it be reliant on LTE-ready tablets and smartphones to lead the way? This is a trend worth looking at as we move onto the next half of 2011, into 2012.